Some time ago I wrote about the current political jargon that is cluttering the linguistic undergrowth of an attempt at intelligent political thought. In response a very kind reader sent me a list of the current wave of ‘corporate jargon’—that stuff that gets used in giant corporations (especially global corporations) and in those ‘consultants’ who come in to write reports for corporations. As with political jargon this list of words and phrase is a substitute for intelligent thought. It is a long list—so I’ll brake up it up into digestible bites of the next few columns. Let’ start with these:
Bandwidth—borrowed from computing and telecommunications: it means the amount of data that can be transmitted at one time. One corporate turkey remembers his CEO cancelling the quarterly planning meetings ‘to protect everyone’s bandwidth’. In other words, so that people wouldn’t have to fill their head with too much information. But why pretend we are phone lines and call it ‘bandwidth’?
Change agent—this means the person who initiates change. This is a self-description that some people now put on their CV. Of course, it is based on the unexamined assumption that ‘change’ is always a good thing, and there is nothing worth preserving.
Circle back—Instead of saying ‘I’ll report to you’ or ‘I’ll get back to you on that’ the corporate monkeys now say, ‘I’ll circle back to you on that.’ (I guess if you don’t sound trendy, you’re in trouble.)
Decision tree—a tree diagram (with lots of branches) showing who makes what decisions where in the corporation.
Decisioning—this just means ‘deciding’ and no, this is not a real English word. It’s just a piece of pretentious nonsense. It’s an attempt to make the process (and your part in it) terrible important. (When the cabin crew on your flight ask ‘Tea of coffee?’ you are pushed into a ‘decisioning’ moment!)
Deep dive—it just means looking at something properly (a bit of research? Investigation? Study? No, those words are too normal for the corporate monkeys to use).
Growth mindset—ambitious. The young team members are no longer asked ‘Are you ambitious’ but instead ‘Do you have a growth mindset?)
Hard stop—at the start of a meeting someone might announce that they have a ‘hard stop’ at 2pm—putting everyone under pressure to finish by then. (The ‘hard stop’ might be the time to pick up the kids from school?)
Hit the ground running—just means starting the job at the starting time, and not waiting until sometime after your morning coffee. This is, somehow, now an exciting virtue!
Juice isn’t worth the squeeze—all this effort is not being to produce a result that’s worth all that effort! I like this one—it’s very creative!
That’s enough for today. (You possibly need to take an aspirin and lie down after that bunch of nonsense!) More tomorrow.
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